Ready Or Not, Grateful Dead's unfinished studio album

It's like 1993 all over again! I'm willing to wager that the price will come down, at least on Amazon.

 

I'm 1000% in, but I agree, that's a terrible cover. Bootleggers could have done better. Maybe it was done by one of the Dead's kids or something?

 

Forget Amazon, it doesn't even make sense within their own store! It's $29.99 for the 3-CD Giants Stadium '91 set and $19.98 for the 2-CD Warfield set. This seems really weird.

 

Cash grab compilation with cheap and awful cover art.
At least the 80s-90s people can't complain about this year

*edit

Nice to see the new Dave's Picks announced ->1973-03-24

 

"Cash grab?" what isn't with dead.net...Rhino that is...its all a cash grab.

 

This might be the worst cash grab in history.

 

And here's Dave raving about it for 12min

 

Wow, this is the most negative Dead thread I've ever read.

I think people are confusing bad songs with bad performances. Yes, we got sick of hearing some of these songs a lot back in the day, but there is a lot of great songs here that just never got strong performances.

The Other Ones version of "Corrina" from The Strange Remain was excellent. Proving that the song had a lot more potential than usually realized with the Dead. Actually, ditto that for "Easy Answers"... in fact, there is a GD version from 95 where Bruce sits in and "Easy Answers" already starts to jam a lot more than expected.

I think "Eternity" is also an excellent song, when it was performed well. I often listen to the 3/26/95 version. Like a lot of these songs, their development had grown by the 95 performances and you can hear where they were going to take off, but I think they get avoided because the 95 shows in general are not liked and that we already have negative connotations for these songs.

I will always stand by the fact that I think "Way to Go Home" was only hated so much because
A) it was played so often (like every other show for a couple years, at least) and
B) Deadhead's just seem to had trouble adapting to where the band was at the time. I always found it somewhat strange that Deadhead's could be so hateful.

"Samba in the Rain" suffered from NEVER being close to performed well. In fact, I suffered through researching ever version of this song ever performed and I don't think I ever found one where Jerry stayed in the right key for his solo. It's sad and very frustrating. The performances are all such a mess. But as a musician, I can hear how the Samba jam could have been a fun vehicle for a jamming & experimentation back in the day, but that just never happened. And yes, it was played too often. - Plus it just came WAY too late in the game to get a chance to be figured out. - And yes, the lyrics are intentionally trite. Hunter trying to create a party-fun song and I think with a band excited behind it, it would have worked. Yes, people would still hate it, but some people hate a lot of fun things in the Dead catalog.

The Jerry songs all seem to be well-liked, so I don't need to comment on them.

Phil songs suffer from the same thing most of the Phil songs since "Box of Rain" suffer from. Really interesting songs that could have been really cool and interesting, but were not the right vehicle for The Dead.

And incidentally, "Victim Or the Crime" is a fantastic song. Yes it's dissonant, but it's supposed to be! My personal pick for worst GD original would be "We Can Run". Not musically, but lyrically it sounds like a 7 year old wrote the lyrics! And I just can't get past that. I agree with the sentiment 100% and I appreciate the effort, but it just doesn't hold up in my book. Musically it's fine. It's not that great. And I like Brent, so I appreciate his singing, he just needed some different words!

Honestly, I think this batch of songs is stronger than the Built to Last songs as far as songwriting goes. I like Built to Last but I think there's much more variety & originality in the last 12 original GD written songs than on the group of songs for Built to Last.

I can't comment too much on the cover art. I'm not as particular about this. It looks like the kind of merchandise and posters and ads I used to see involving the Dead back in the 80's and 90's, trying to look 70's ish. I don't mind it.

 

Still sort of interested why Phil didn't want any of his songs included.

 

I’m fine with 91-95 Dead and ok with most of these songs. I’ll put on a full show and probably won’t skip much. But would I listen to this compilation? No.

Way to Go Home is a decent song.
Samba in the Rain is not.

 

Same here.

 

"Way To Go Home" is pretty good. It would've been better as a 1st set song. It killed 2nd set momentum at times.........especially when played out of drums>space.

 

It'll probably be less on Amazon, though I'd much rather order from Dead.net (if I order at all)

 

isn't everything that isn't offered for free a cash grab? silly term, imo

this isn't worse then JGB Shining Star release



and is kind of in line with their silly backstage passes from that era

 

Fair point

 

LP’s limited to 2,000. A few songs from shows I was at cut into wax? Sure, no problem. Grab my cash.

 

i actually like the point that was made to NOT include Hornsby. I think that Vince, when left to fend for himself, immersed himself in the music and integrated to much better effect then when he was tentatively dancing around Hornsbys bull in a china shop approach

 

I'm totally in for this one. I've worn the corresponding disc of the "So Many Roads" set out.

 

I wish the Hoffman Gorts would banish the term "Cash Grab"!
Negative, unnecessary and usually not applicable.

 

Great magic top hat cover art.

 

Let me guess ... because of their unparalleled customer service?

 

Oh, I'm totally in for this as well, terrible art notwithstanding. I think I still reserve the right to complain about a $20 single disc though, especially when that's so far removed from their standard price points.

 

Cool beans yo

 

Fo shizzle.

 

2000 for red/blue vinyl and I think black vinyl is 10000